667 
THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 
From the Deutsche Heeres-Zeitung, 20th August , 1872. 
BY 
CAPT. T. ROCH, R.A. 
The latest campaign in Africa shows one of the most dangerous 
blunders which any nation, or more correctly speaking, that nation, 
whose government undertakes such an one, ever committed. It was 
commonly thrown in the teeth of the French, as every one knows, 
during the Franco-German war, that they had won easy victories in 
Africa, but were unable to stand against disciplined troops. The 
taunt was well founded and yet was not. There was no army in 
France which could successfully withstand the Germans, but there was 
an army in Algeria which held the Arabs in check, and would have 
defeated the Germans on the burning soil of Africa. After their over¬ 
throw—when the French set to work to re-organize their army—they 
naturally turned to the system of their conquerors for a model, and 
they forgot, in doing so, that France was also an African Power and 
needed an African army. They still kept, indeed, an African rifle 
regiment, but this hardly suffices to guard its own garrisons. In the 
days when service in the French army was for seven years, the men 
were only sent to join the African army after they had served three 
years with the colors, and were therefore inured to hardship and 
discipline, and thus they had four more years to serve, and, after one 
year's sojourn, were fit to cope with the Arabs, to endure the heat, 
thirst, and toil of marches, and, moreover, had learnt the art of warfare 
peculiar to that country. Besides, the re-engaged men were also at 
hand—non-commissioned officers in particular, well acquainted with the 
country and its inhabitants—good men to show the way, and especially 
well adapted to instruct the last-joined recruits in the peculiarities of 
warfare in those parts. 
Now all that is changed. The period of military service is reduced 
to three years, the soldier scarcely passes two years with the colors, 
the cadres are incomplete, and if it be possible to carry on a successful 
war on the Continent with such a system, in Africa it must always 
entail disaster. The latest expedition to Tunis has shown this. In 
many respects the army is superior to that of 1870. Officers and men 
